Holy cow! I was looking at what I should plan for gratuities ($28, head waiter, $21, $7, $28 hostess...etc..etc..) and then I read it's per person including kids? That's over $750 for our family. Is this what people are planning for gratuities?
Yes, we just prepaid our tips, so that we wouldn't have to worry about it later.
Now, when we went on our two day trip, we tipped a bit less, because Disney did not tell us ahead of time as to what to plan for our gratuities, so we based it on what we felt as a percentage of what we had set aside for tips. It was our first cruise, so it was a total and complete guess as to how much we should give in tips and we budgeted based on what we found others saying online, which turned out to be older information.
I did feel bad for some of the staff that assisted us, as they got less than they deserved at times, but I am sure that they understand why it happened, as Disney did not give us proper information to plan our tips. Others got exactly what they earned. For example our stateroom hostess was not very thorough in her cleaning, at the end of our cruise we had dropped something in the couch and had to fish it out, in the process we found a lanyard that a previous cruiser had dropped down there, which tells me she never moved the couch to vacuum under it, even between us and the previous occupants
which should always be done in my opinion, in any hotel type situation, even cruises. I know this sounds picky, but it's not, let's say that someone with severe nut allergies is staying in a room and the person before them was eating nuts and it fell down in the couch. When the next person checks in.....well, it will definitely not be good for them.
This time they have given us the information, so we prepaid to avoid those issues from reoccurring and if they give even better service than we expect, we may tip extra, if they give worse service, I will talk with guest services and reduce the tip, if needed.
Just remember that tips are always at your discretion.